The prosource diaries — Devika
Spend a day with Devika, a database analyst
05:30 – 08:00 – Getting ready for the day I’m an early riser. I used to get up at 04:30, but as I’m working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, I can sleep in. I enjoy cooking for my family, and prepare fresh food for us every day, so I start my day with this. Once I’ve started the food, I call my extended family back home in India, and chat with my dad and siblings.
08:00 – 09:00 - Early emails – I check my emails, starting with any database (DB) alerts – there could be backup failures or availability issues that need addressing. I might also have received client emails or correspondence from others working on any issues. In my current role, I’m not providing support, but I work closely with a vendor who does. If there are any alerts which have not been attended to by the vendor, I log in and do quick checks and fix things from my end if I can. After that, I follow up with the vendor or start any escalations.
09:00 – 09:30 – Daily Call – I have a call with the entire Project Team to catch up on the activities completed the previous day, the activities planned for today and any issues faced, and have a quick look ahead for the next few days.
09:30 – 11:30 – Change Prep – I’m currently working on a database migration project. In order to migrate databases without causing disruption, we need to plan these migrations and submit ‘Requests for Change’. We do this at a Change Advisory Board meeting where we explain what we plan to do, when we plan to do it and show that we’ve planned it properly so that it won’t cause any big issues and disruption. I have a Request for Change to present today so I make sure I’m ready. I then spend some time checking over migrations from the previous day and making sure there aren’t any issues that need resolving – sometimes there are user access issues which can be easy to fix, on another day there might be a performance issue that is a bit more involved.
11:30 – midday – Change Advisory Board – The CAB meets twice a week via virtual conference. I attend the meeting and present my change – the Board have a few questions which I answer, then they accept the request, so we can go ahead with migrations later in the week.
12:00 – 12:30 - Lunchtime - I go out for a walk.
12:30 – 15:30 – Getting caught up - Afternoons are always busy – I catch up with documentation, or plan ahead for our ‘business as usual’ tasks like patching. I get calls from colleagues on other teams like applications and infrastructure if they have DB questions. I really enjoy shell scripting so I also like to look at improvement opportunities, automating monitoring or similar. I also check in with ServiceNow (the system where requests for all IT teams are logged) to progress any requests that are sitting with me.
15:30 – 16:30 – Closing out - I spend some time reviewing tasks for completion and tidying my inbox so that I’m in a good place for tomorrow.
Evening – Time to relax, eat dinner and spend time with family. On some weekday evenings, there will be some more work to do. It’s when migration activity happens, there will usually be a one to three hour window for this, depending on what was approved at the Change Advisory Board. We do this work out of core hours to make sure there’s no disruption. There’s no activity tonight, so I am all done for the day.
